🚀 go-pugleaf

This is for Bran Davis-Howe:

Well, I found your composition on the history of Co-masonry
interesting, if not just a little tinged with error.

Based on the documentation available in the UK, including
an extensive bibliography penned by the late Philip Crossle,
your Mrs. Aldworth was actually known as the Hon. Elizabeth
St. Leger and was initiated around 1710.

I realize a few years either way won't make much difference,
but the details of your story aren't borne out by the
documentation from the UK, where the event occurred.  The
lady in question was the DAUGHTER (not sister) of the 1st
Viscount Doneraile.  The story is told somewhat differently,
but with the same end result.  In the archives, the young
lady fell asleep in her father's library.  When she awoke,
the lodge meeting was in progress.  The rest of the story
varies only in the intent of the young lady and the desire
of the menfolk (which included her father AND brother)to
protect the secrets of the lodge.

There are a few other instances of women being admitted
into freemasonry under unusual circumstances.  One in
England (the lady died in 1802), one in the US (the lady
was born in 1815), and one in Hungary (the lady was
born in 1833 and initiated in 1875).  In the last case,
numerous expulsions and suspensions were ordered by the
Grand Orient of Hungary, who declared the admission of
the Countess in question to be null and void.

Additionally, just as the French are mostly responsible
for giving Freemasonry the gift of the Knights Templar
and Scottish Rite, they apparently are the source of your
Co-Masonic roots.  As you observed, Mlle. Maria Deraismes
was not the first woman Freemason.  However, I believe you
will agree that she was the first woman initiated into a
lodge which was intended to be "Co-Masonic."  The minutes
of 14 January 1882, under the heading of Loge Symbolique
Ecossaise Mixte 'les libres Penseurs', record that Mlle.
Deraismes was initiated on that day.

Unless you are also a "regular" Freemason, you do not KNOW
for sure that your Co-Masonic order uses the same secrets,
rituals, and signs that regular Freemason lodges do.  Likewise,
I do not know that you do NOT use them as I am not a Co-Mason.
While there is a gulf or chasm of "recognition" there, I see
no particular reason for hostility of either group toward the
other.

If I might be allowed to make an observation or two:

You say, "as far as I am concerned, I consider myself quite
regular and our co-masonic lodge to be a properly constituted
lodge by co-masonic authority."

You are absolutely correct.  You may consider yourself regular
under the rules of Co-masonry, but you are NOT regular under
the rules of FREEMASONRY.  That may be a fine distinction,
but you are the one who seems to have a problem with it, not
any of the regular Freemason's I've seen on this net.

I have no problem with what you are doing; I simply cannot
and will not recognize you as a Freemason.  I think you are
doing wonderful work, but I wouldn't recognize a Knight of
Columbus or Rotarian or a Lion as a Freemason either.  There's
plenty of room in this world for both orders to exist peaceably.

As to your comment that Male-Craft masons ten to work more
in a public fashion, I would submit to you that the United
States Masons are NOT the only Freemasons in the world.  I
assure you, Scottish Masons work very much in the background
as regards their charity and benevolent works.  I have never
known any of my brethren to ridicule or persecute a Co-Masonic
order, although I am certain that it is done from time to time.
Remember we all recruit from the same general population;  we
just like to think we get a better shot at the cream of the crop
than the general populace sees.

There are a lot of Grand Lodge jursidictions in "traditional"
Freemasonry which are not "recognized" as regular by the main-
stream.  The only time we might have a "problem" with Co-Masonry
is when or if it tries to pass itself off as Freemasonry, with
the roots in antiquity that mainstream Masonry enjoys.  You are
actually an organization (like many others) which builds its
foundation on the basic principles of Freemasonry.  Nothing
wrong with that, but you aren't Freemasons for obvious reasons.

Bill